


learn from your mother

by supportingcharacters (orphan_account)



Series: jeaneren week 2014 one shots [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Established Relationship, jeaneren week 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/supportingcharacters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>(The grief doesn’t cut as bad when you lie to them, saying you don’t care)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>(Because yes; you are lying to them)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>(And worst of all, you’re lying to yourself)</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://jaegerschtein.tumblr.com/post/73199433530/art-source-jeaneren-week-this-is-a">JeanEren Week Day 3:  Denial</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	learn from your mother

You wake up in the middle of the night, from a nightmare. You know it was only a dream, but there are tears pouring from your eyes, an overwhelming feeling of loss aching in your chest. You know it was only a dream, but it felt real; you can still smell the stench of dead bodies and taste the metallic tang of blood on the air, you can still feel the adrenaline pumping through your body, can still feel the fear and panic and anger and sadness whirling in your mind. You can still feel all of these, before one coherent thought takes your mind’s focus; gonna kill them all, gonna destroy them, gonna _annihilate them all_ -

You take a few deep, slow, breaths.

It’s been a few years; you’ve both worked your way up to a rank that earns you single rooms. You pad softly to the door, slipping out and stealing down the corridor. You wipe angrily at your eyes before stopping outside Jean’s room. _Come on now, Eren_ , you tell yourself _. Calm down, don’t want Jean to be too worried._

You know he will be worried. It’s rare that you’ll suddenly appear in your boyfriend’s room in the middle of the night, eyes bloodshot and hands trembling. He’s clever, he’ll put two and two together. You take another few deep breaths before opening the door.

The curtains are open, moonlight pouring in through the tiny window and painting a stark white streak across the dark room. It’s because of this pale moonlight that you’re able to see; able to see the bed, still made from yesterday morning, empty and unslept in.

Then you remember. It hits you like a brick-

_Steaming, it’s too hot, too hot, too hot you’re burning up-_

_Half out of the titan’s neck, shit there are more coming – where’s Mikasa? Need to get out and transform again but-_

_They’re right there, right on top of you, fuck-_

_It smiles as it looks at you, preparing to eat another soldier – barely a snack for them in the grand scheme of things-_

_You’re arms are still trapped in the searing flesh of your titan form, quickly reducing to a skeleton. Just a minute, it’ll be gone and you can transform and send these fuckers to hell-_

_But no, it’s reaching out and you call for help but there’s nobody around to hear you scream-_

_You can’t die yet, you haven’t seen the ocean, you haven’t destroyed them all yet, you don’t want to die but you can’t escape; its hand is about to reach you when-_

_A flurry of blades, green of an emerald cloak blurring and a spurt of warm blood-_

_For a second you panic, but then the blood evaporates, and when you look closer the human is unharmed, the titan’s pulling its hand away but you know it’ll grow back soon-_

_Jean turns to you, fear and panic scrawled over his face. “What the fuck are you playing at?” he hisses. “I can’t get free,” you say, pulling frantically. “Cut me out of here!”_

_He needs, moving to you but before he can even swing his blades the titan’s hand is coming back, already regrown-_

_He jumps, just barely dodging it. “I’ll buy you some time,” he says, voice shaking. His eyes have that shaky, crazed look in his eyes. You know it well by now; it’s the look he gets when he’s terrified, when he’s staring into the jaws of death (literally). “Don’t go,” you call, panic edging into your voice, but dammit he’s already gone-_

_He swings on his gear, low under the arm, swinging up behind it. Unfortunately the titan turns, blocking access to its nape. You try to wrench yourself out of the titan but it’s not working (although you’re only stuck up to your elbow now, you just need another few seconds)-_

_Jean swings around, curving in a graceful arc. He’s always been exceptional at using his gear, and you’re thinking he might just make it-_

_When the titan grabs his wire-_

_You’re crying out-_

_Can’t lose Jean, can’t lose Jean-_

_He can’t move though, not when he’s being grasped by his wires-_

_Even from here you can see terrified tears spilling from amber eyes-_

_You cry out his name, desperately pulling your arms, you only need a second or two more-_

_A second or two you don’t have-_

_You watch helplessly as the boy you love is grabbed by the titan, pulled towards its gaping maw-_

_“Jean!” you scream, and he’s screaming too-_

_And the jaws snap shut in a flurry of splattered blood, and now the only one screaming is you-_

_And you’re hands come free (too late)-_

_You bite your hand so fiercely the blood sprays up in your face-_

_You’re still screaming-_

_A flash of light, heat of another titan body forming around you and all you can feel is an overwhelming sadness and horror and **rage** -_

_Your titan form roars, louder than it ever has before, so loud you reckon that it could be heard by the King in the Interior-_

_You’re going to kill them all._

✺✺✺

The feeling of huge loss hits you so hard you double over, grief making you choke on your sobs. You’re on your knees now, crushed by the sorrow because he’s gone and you could have saved him, but you didn’t.

No. Jean _can’t_ be dead.

You don’t know how long you stay crouched on the floor of his room. Eventually you remember how to move again. You strip the blankets from his bed and bring them back to your own, wrapping yourself in them. They still smell like him; the familiar scent of Jean. It lulls you to an uneasy sleep as you lie enveloped in them.

✺✺✺

It’s hard to function afterwards.

You remember this all too well; remember being just a boy having lost your mother. It feels as if another precious piece of you has been torn away and devoured, leaving you incomplete. Jean had just begun to fill the void in you, and now he’s gone, leaving an even bigger hole in his place.

If you had been told upon enlisting in the Trainee Corps that Jean Kirschtein would die for you, you would have doubled over laughing. Oh, what you would give to be back in that time.

You feel so lonely; even though you have Mikasa and Armin, and the others in Levi’s Squad. It was the same after your mother died; despite everything you still have, all you can focus on is the crippling grief. The first few days are the hardest; learning that life still goes on. You still have tasks, training, and chores. You still need to hold it all together, despite wanting to fall apart.

It’s a blur; you keep expecting to see him. See his jaunty waves and sly smirks, hear his smooth voice shooting insults that you throw right back, see the way his hazel eyes soften slightly when he looks at you, like he can’t quite believe you’re there with him.

The grief is too much, so you bury it. Mikasa asks you how you are. You smile and say you’re fine, why wouldn’t you be? She knows better. She gives you a worried look.

Armin talks about a new strategy he’s been mulling over. Jean and I were discussing it, he says. And we decided that – Armin suddenly stops speaking, eyes glinting sadly. He apologizes quietly, says he knows that it must be hard to talk about him. You laugh, give a roll of your eyes. Everything’s fine, you say.

Connie and Sasha are telling you a hilarious story, and you’re genuinely laughing. Man, you say. I need to tell Jean that one.

Connie and Sasha freeze, exchange a glance. You roll your eyes. Why does everyone think you’re completely devastated? You’re not, after the first few nights you don’t even think about Jean anymore. In a few months, he’ll be a distant memory – just another fallen soldier among many.

_(The grief doesn’t cut as bad when you lie to them, saying you don’t care)_

_(Because yes; you are lying to them)_

_(And worst of all, you’re lying to yourself)_

✺✺✺

It’s the evening, a month after the disastrous expedition. You’re sitting with Mikasa and Armin, talking with them. There’s a lull in the conversation, and you look sleepily into the dying fire.

Mikasa breaks the silence. “Denial,” she says, “isn’t healthy.”

It takes a moment to register that she’s talking about you. “What?”

“Denial, Eren,” she says again. “You must be in some form of it. Everyone knows you loved Jean. Everyone knows he loved you too.” You don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. “Yet you’re so…emotionless about it. It’s almost as if you don’t care, but it’s obvious that you do; therefore, the only reason is that you’re in denial. You’re either trying to kid yourself, forget that he’s even dead and act like he’s alive, or you’re denying any grief you’re feeling, and are trying to act like everything is normal.”

Her words sting like a slap; mostly because they’re true. Suddenly, you feel too hot; as if a great pressure is pushing down at you from all sides. You stand up. Armin says your name. Mikasa stands as you leave, but Armin rests a placating hand on her shoulder.

You run to your room. By the time you get there, the tears are falling.

You still can’t believe he’s gone.

You go to the tiny closest, pulling out the blankets you stole from his bed that night. You throw them around yourself, curling into the warmth they offer as you sob. Not just for the person you were in love with; for a destroyed home, for the 104th Squad, for a lost mother, for a stolen childhood.

The grief has been like a balloon in your stomach, always threatening to burst, while you, in response, always pushed it down further and tried to pretend that it didn’t exist. Well, the balloon has well and truly popped, and you feel helpless as the sorrow wrecks you like the Armored Titan wrecked Wall Maria.

Too many; too many people you loved have been stolen by the titans; your mother, Auruo, Petra, Erd, Gunther, Marco, Hannes, Mina, Thomas, Nack, Myl-

You loved him; you fucking loved him. He loved you. Not like how you love Mikasa and Armin; something different altogether. What you had was _special_ , something incredible and exhilarating and exciting, something most people only find once, if they’re lucky. You had it with him, and they fucking stole him.

You miss him so much.

You cry for the one you loved, remembering his fear of death, his final cry. You hope that at least wherever he is now, there’s no more fighting, and that maybe he can find his old best friend again. You hope he’s better off than he would have been down here, in hell on earth.

You miss him.

The blankets barely smell like him anymore, he’s been gone for so long. You can only catch a faint whiff of his painfully familiar scent. The world still turns, practically unchanged by his death. Even though he was like a comet in your life; lighting up everything in a short but powerful streak, the world moves on, unchanged, uncaring about his death. In a few years, nobody will have said his name aloud in years. In a few more years, most of those who remember him will be dead, for those still alive; he’ll be a distant memory, just one fallen comrade among hundreds.

He might have died an insignificant death, (a drop in the ocean you doubts you’ll ever see). He mightn’t have changed the world, but he’s changed _you_. For you, his death has made all of the difference in the world.

You’re not going to forget. You’re not going to let his death be in vain.

The grief loses its edge, slowly being replaced by another familiar feeling. Rage.

You think of the titans, the things that took Jean, took everyone and everything away from you. You think of the traitors who brought down the walls. You think of all of the pain you feel, and how you’re going to take revenge for the fallen. You think of a destroyed childhood, the complete loss of innocence, the destruction of a chance of happiness; all because of the titans.

_You’re going to fucking kill them all._

**Author's Note:**

> hella unoriginal tbqh  
> title from [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKEIt9tAXt4)  
> [JeanEren Week hell ye](http://jeanerenweek.tumblr.com/)  
> [find me at tumblr dot com](http://gaaradical.tumblr.com)  
> [find my writing related posts at tumblr dot com](http://suppportingcharacters.tumblr.com)


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